He's made some bad ones, to be sure - he was notably burned by telecom companies during the dotcom bust - but over the course of a few decades of investing, Gilder has become known as a prescient technophile.

In 2007, Mr. Dai gave up a manufacturing business he had run for years and switched to credit guarantee, a change of course he jokingly calls "prescient" in light of the funding plight facing small manufacturers now.